Friday, November 4, 2011

After yesterday's presentation to the press and collector's preview, the public can now visit the Artissima 18 - International Fair of Contemporary Art, through November 6, 2011, in the Oval, Lingotto Fiere, Turin, Italy.

Main Section, which includes some of the most representative galleries from the international art scene, chosen by the Selection Committee.

New Entries, with a selection of 25 galleries from 11 countries, that have been working for less than five years, and that are taking part in Artissima for the first time, chosen by the Selection Committee.This year, an international jury will confer the Guido Carbone Award to the gallery in this section, that showed the best initiatives to discover and promote young artists.

Present Future is devoted to 16 emerging artists invited by a team of international curators, and represented by their galleries. This section presented in partnership with the illycaffè, which will be offering the illy Present Future Award to the artist considered to be the most engaging one by a jury of three distinguished experts. The winner will receive a €10,000 prize and will have the opportunity to present a design for the “illy Art Collection” of auteur coffee cups.

Back to the Future, launched in 2010 with the aim of focusing on artists who worked in the 1960s and ’70s and who have enjoyed little recognition in recent decades, but whose work is particularly significant today, is an authentic museum-style exhibition of works by a group of artists chosen by an international Committee. This year's edition shows 20 artists (10 from Italy, 10 from abroad).

Artissima 18 will also bring to the public a curatorial programme comprising two projects:

Simple Rational Approximations, a project for a museum, conceivedby the Turin-born artist Lara Favaretto in cooperation with Francesco Manacorda, happening at the centre of the Artissima pavilion. This project consists in a “provisional institution” which is modelled on some of the traditionalfunctions of contemporary art museums:

a permanent collection inspired by Eat Art with masterpieces of contemporary art, consisted of a complete series of 80 works of art reproduced as cakes.Exhibited in four groups of 20 cakes on each day of the fair, the pieces start out complete at the beginning of the day and are freely available for the public to eat.

a temporary exhibition devised by Pierre Bal-Blanc in the form of a series of performances followed by a conversation;

an auditorium with the screening of films recently produced by the Chisenhale Gallery of London, followed by three days of conferences, debates, and screenings on the circulation of knowledge, and more besides, organised by Bétonsalon, Triple Canopy, and Salon Populaire;

a bookshop arranged in accordance with the bizarre taxonomy of the Bureau of Loose Associations;

a storage of fundamental exhibitions of the twentieth century, which will be on display in the Hypnotic Show curated by Raimundas Malašauskas;

an education department which is also a scientific laboratory for the production of ink, created by France Fiction;

a publishing department which gives real-time data on the Fair and on the curatorial project, created by the Artissima 18 graphic designer Sara De Bondt studio.

It is also a fictitious, ephemeral and nomadic organisation, rethinking its characteristics through a selection of existing projects or new proposals submitted by individuals, collectives, and institutions.

Artissima LIDO is a first time programme of exhibitions and events in the centre ofTurin, outside the fair and out of its opening hours.In the mediaeval district of the “Roman Quadrilateral”, a number of not-for-profit spaces run by artists from all over Italy will temporarily move out to a series of city spaces, where they will work on their various experimental activities, at the same time and in the same place. Artissima LIDO is curated by three Italian artists, Christian Frosi, Renato Leotta, and Diego Perrone, and it offers a very full, varied calendar of exhibitions, performances, screenings, concerts, and conversations in specially chosen places. The starting point for a walk through the neighbourhood is the Artissima Social Club, a temporary bar where the art world and visitors to the fair will be able to meet each evening.

The 2011 edition of Artissima also counts with the participation of museums, foundations and art institutions from the region in an exclusive event that illustrates what is on offer in terms of contemporary art displays in Turin and Piedmont.This year, the initiative is enriched by the collaboration of the Education Departments of the network zonarte.Workshops, laboratories, meetings and a discussion area, are open to all different types of public (children, students, families, professionals, and experts) ‘to reconsider art spaces as places for encounter and interaction, as well as of knowledge’.

For the first time, events for visitors to Artissima include a special series of Collector's Walk guided tours in the fair pavilion, led by renowned international collectors who comment on the works in terms of their own personal passion for contemporary art.To book your free visit call +39 011 19744106 or email segreteria@artissima.it

Curated by Francesco Manacorda, Artissima 18 can be visited from 4 to 6 November 2011, between 11 am and 7 pm.

Tickets:Full: € 15,00Reduced: € 10,00 ** Ages 12-18. Over 65 anni. University students, upon presentation of university student record book. Military, in uniform.Free admission upon presentation of the Torino Musei card and Torino Piemonte Card, from 4 to 6 November. Free admission for disabled individuals and one accompanying person.